Visual Studio 2008 - Why do my windows keep rearranging themselves?

Question

Every so often (at least a couple of times a day), my VS2008 windows are rearranging themselves.

Team/Solution/Server Explorer - They jump from the right sidebar down to the bottom, or suddenly become free-floating.

Same with Errors/Pending Changes/etc. free-floating or suddenly gone, as if they've been closed.

It is very strange behaviour. Has anyone else experienced it? Am I doing something silly that would account for this?

Answer 1

This happens to me when I have multiple instances of Visual Studio open at once and make a change. It seems the settings are stored when VS closes, so the last instance to close saves its settings over the others...

Answer 2

I get this all the time. As far as I know, there isn't a "fix" for it. Your best bet is to export your desired settings and then import them if things are screwed up.

Answer 3

Does this happen when opening new solutions? The .suo file contains user settings which I believe includes window locations.

For this reason, they shouldn't be checked into source control, as they can override other's settings.

Answer 4

I've seen this too. My current project is a web service, and both the client test program and the service projects are both part of the same sln. So, to test, I have the sln open in two VS2008 instances. I always figured this was why it was happening to me.

Answer 5

Ditto - this randomly happens to me on my dual monitor setup as well. I hope someone has the answer to this.

Answer 6

Does that for me too, generally on multi-monitor systems. See if it does the same thing with your add-ons disabled, and consider switching which of your monitors is Primary.

Also, keep track of whether you last closed VS cleanly or ended the task because it was frozen again.